Married to Inspiration

Being in a lifelong love affair with making images seems to
be like any other long-term relationship: sometimes the passion runs high, and other
times you take each other for granted.
You drift a little part and reunite over and over, learning and growing
through the years together. But through it all you keep the faith that you are in it for the long haul, even when the going is rough.

Sometimes you cannot keep your hands or your mind off the
object of your affection. Oh! To hold
the camera! To click the shutter! At those times, you have unlimited enthusiasm
to look at everything – no matter how humble and commonplace – through the lens
so you can really “see” it for the first time.
But other times, inspiration is aloof and absent. The relationship feels stale and you worry
that the love is gone. A nagging voice
in your head questions whether there is anything left to photograph that hasn’t
already been done by others a million different ways, and whether
you’re any good at it anyway. (That
voice is not your friend, by the way.
And it doesn’t really know what it’s talking about).

I recently read that a true artist knows they cannot just
wait to feel inspired in order to create.
They accept that they have to work at it, that to create is to commit over and
over to pouring out your heart and soul even when the critic and cynic in your
head are sneering. Even when you’re not
sure that you have anything to “say” in your art that anyone else would care
about. Because you and your art are
meant to be together even though sometimes it won’t be particularly exciting
and requires a lot of work to look past each other’s flaws.

I think that, just as with people, you have to meet
inspiration half-way. Take the first
step once in a while by doing something really considerate and sweet. Then inspiration will occasionally surprise
you with flowers or, even better, a refreshed desire to go out and see the
world anew.

So, this morning, when I was preparing to head out to the
Corcoran Gallery downtown for a field trip, when I saw my camera, I didn’t wait
around for inspiration to ask me to spend the day together. I picked up the
camera and hung the strap around my shoulder as a show of good faith. Instead of debating the pros and cons of
carrying the extra weight, risking bumping it into something on the Metro, blah
blah blah, I just did it. And it paid
off: Inspiration decided to meet up with
me for a romantic afternoon. We held
hands and giggled. We got absorbed in
everything around us, from soaring sculptures to humble tiles at the Metro
station. We remembered we are meant to
be together and are in it for better or worse, for richer or poorer. That we don't have to wait for a special occasion to be blissfully happy. Here are some of
the things we saw. (You can also see these images on our main gallery site here).